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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

I wanted a light grey/silver version with a bright red interior to see the design in a lighter shade.

This tipped up view shows off the red/black combo that was typical in early VW and Porches of the era.

Had to try the 'rootbeer' color on this one too, I have seen this color on a 54 VW.

This ambient render shows the panel seeas better so you can see how I have adjusted the door tops and rear cowl area. Still deciding on rear louver placement, then I finish the tin work up.

The side view as an Ambient Render, reveals the decklid is a bit wide and overhangs the rear fender beading, this will be addressed in ROUND 2.0 once I have time to put into her design.

Personal Project

The Bugster Coupe

PART II

So here is Part II, as a follow up to Mondays posting, with some additional images of my Bugster custom VW coupe project I just started this past weekend. As a Transportation design graduate, a project like this is something that I have always wanted to do since a 3D representation of a design is so helpful to do before any metal is cut, and 3D software is the tool to do this as the changes are very fast to implement and see finished the same day, this is a great strength of 3D design.

The model is a work in progress still[ WIP], as I have not welded the big panels into the body yet so I can adjust the overall curves and proportions before it is all one piece. I have some tweaking left to do as well as some design decisions needed to continue, so this is next up.

In the following weeks I have some plans to finish this out, and do the Volksrod alternate version as well, a fender-less I-Beam front ended hot rod version of the Bugster too. I plan to put the uncovered bomber seats from a Speedster in there[ covers on for this one], the Speeedster top and tonneau covers, and I plan to do the entire engine compartment design too showing the huge tray behind the motor now which is about 75% done from when it was going to be used for Herbie[ that portion of the MGFX was scrapped- a motor fly out anim].

Look for more posts as I continue with this personal project in the months ahead.

As a full time employee at The Cimarron Group I often helped out with 3D visualizations of the various construction projects that the owner Bob Farina had at the company. I had worked on a restaurant and been an Imagineer so I was very familiar with these type of projects.

Also, I have professional training in space design as I worked with Steelcase out of MI, when I was going to CCS in Detriot back in 1985, so space planning was in my design blood early on.

A simple project, they gave me dimensions, and needs for the furniture piece, and as an ex-cabinet builder myself, I did a 3D visualization to create the line art parts drawing for the construction plan document.

I even created a parts list from the 3D, as I simply counted up the parts I built virtually.

To achieve the line art there are a few ways in 3D to do this, the easiest way I use is Final-Toon which is a ink and paint renderer that ships with Final Render, my go to renderer.

This is the first in a series of architectural work I do along side the higher concept design work as well, look for future posts, and enjoy.

Today I have posted the first images on a new personal project that I just started this Thanksgiving weekend 2011, a custom Volkswagen coupe that is a combination of the VW type 1 bug and a Porsche Speedster and highly influenced by the Hebmuller coachbuilts from the era.

I have been a bug fan since I was about 13 and bought my first car at 14, a 1961ish, VW bug, so I have been 'bitten by the bug" and over the years I have owned well over a dozen.

I also am a huge Speedster fan, as my father owned a 1958', bought new from Hoffmans out of NYC, he got me into VW by teaching me engine work etc as the two cars are so similar. I also have owned 3 Porsche replicas so I am very familiar with the two cars.

I have thought for years what would it look like to combing the top and windscreen from a Speedster onto a Coupe bug, with a big decklid like a Hebmuller, so this weekend Herbie, got virtually chopped!

Today I have posted this Work In Progress[ WIP], with the main proportions in there, though I have not 'welded' the metal yet, so I can adjust proportions in color. This alone is the great advantage of chopping a car in 3D, as you can play with the results before you weld it all togeter to make sure you like all lines and proportions.

Look for more posts as I continue with this personal project work in automotive styling.

While at The Cimarron Group back in 2007, I worked on a few Cinema Expo presentations for the International Division headed up by John Zaffarano, and I had to build the VW bus from Little Miss Sunshine for an animated piece their own 3D guy was doing.

Here is the catch, I had 8 Hours to do it. Bear in mind a good automotive model from scratch takes about a week, or 40 hours to get a full exterior done, so one fifth that time was a real challenge.

I did have an advantage in that I had built a VW bug for Herbie here, and I could use a few parts from that model for the details here, suspension, door handles etc, but for this one I did all parts as Quads so they could be smoothed once their team took the model. I also have the advantage that I am a Transportation Grad who happens to know a lot about VW's and have owned a Bay Window bus, this same year, so it was from memory for a bunch of this.

As a note, if you look below the passenger door you will see some rippling in the body, and since this was a long shot to a close up on just the front end of the 3D Virtual Bus, and it would not show, and I had only one day to do this all, I was not able to fix it in time for delivery, and that was discussed and expected with one fifth the time to this.

I loved the challenge of trying to get a car done that fast, it teaches you a whole bunch, on how to run that fast.

This
is my 87th posting here on my design blog for my contributions to The
Phantom 2040. Today I have added a few additional props that I designed for the television series that aired on ABC back in the early 90's.

I have said it before, but this was a dream job, I was offered the position just one year out of Art Center, and since I changed my career based on Syd Meads work on Blade Runner, this was an animated future city with every square inch needing Industrial Design, what could be a better fit for a Transportation Major!

I did lots of these fun little items, form the cool shades for Maxwell, to a ear piece comm-set for Sagan. In prepping the work, I noticed that Rebecca's Desk has a MS Surface PC and an iPad on top and this was back in 93, and we are there already.

If you are a FAN of The Phantom 2040, and on FACEBOOK, there is a group dedicated to the show here.

There is a TAG on the list to the RIGHT for other Phantom 2o4o entry's, but you can click this as well.

I
had the great privilege of working on all four Twilight ad campaigns, and today I post the work I did for the finished 3D Logo for the current film in theaters now, Breaking Dawn Part I.

Early in the series I had the room to experiment more with the look and feel of the logo, and we did a whole lot more variation and 3D sculpting for the first two films posted here on my design blog for your viewing.

On this fourth film, which also happens to be the last 3D Illustration job done for the Cimarron Group over a seven year period, was a very simple version of the logo, a 3D, straight extrusion, and re-use of the custom made 3D welds" I built for the prior 3 films was what I was directed to produce.

The same 3D weld model can be found in all other finished logos for the series as I just replaced the type as each consequent film that came out.The final did go to finish, and was rendered at a super big size of 9500 pixels wide, a huge final when most One Sheets[Movie Posters] are done closer to 4500 pixels wide.

In this, my fourth posting on the work I did for the newer[ now old!] Herbie film starring Lindsey Lohan and Justin Long, today we look at some Motion Graphics [ MGFX] 3D cards I did for the AV team at The Cimarron Group back in 05.

Simple straight forward chrome logos with a nice simple warm to cool, soft reflection to them. A front font with a holding device back plate in a gold metal is always a favorite these days[ the last decade.... be honest!], so I was directed to do that again on this project too.

My First three other posts on the VW build itself, are here, along with this and this.

In
this fifth posting, on work I did back in the early 90's right out of Art Center, for the Fashion Industry Manufacturer of interior design elements for major department stores, Silvestri California, I have a quick 2 sketch posting for you to review.

Bill, had a rough doodle concept to show the fixtures in the specific store in Chicago, so I did these two 11 x 17 velum Marker Renderings for the presentation we sent out for approval.

You may notice that I did the sketch using the ship curves I use to get the fish-eye perspective for a more dramatic view to sell the concept to our clients.

The design were eventually built as the X-mas display that year for 1992.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The only Sub-D Quad surface was the body itself, all else was built using nPowers, PowerNURBS.

A close up on the wheel spindle on the dropped axle from beam

The Ford 9" rear end suspension detailing is seen here[ note the SAE on the bolt head modeled in]

The front frame member details showing the inside of the rails on the Virtual Deuce.

A view of the 9" rear end and drive-shaft parts connecting the two speed components

Test Project

My Little Virtual Deuce CoupePART II

This is my second post on the Virtual Deuce[ 1932 Ford] coupe I built as a test car for paint and lighting and pitches, and today I have some older screen caps I wanted to post on the Deuce Coupe I began building back in 08.

I wanted to have a set of very detailed Hot Rod parts for a few resons and I decided to use this project as a test bed for these tasks.

Once it was all done I wanted to use it to test Photoreal rendering of cars, but I also wanted to test out modeling something bolt by bolt with every detail in there. This was to be used to help sell my automotive srevices to clients, as we found that being a "motorhead" was benifically in automotive accounts as there was always a hot rod fan on the teams when dealing with the subject matter of cars, so having this, it helped show off our comitiment and passion for the craft.

As you can see I have not touched this for a while, also this was built using BREP nurb surfaces so it is high rez only model except for the body shell you see above, the only Sub-D quad part in there.

Actually I posted this years ago and someone commented that it should be all quads and that was inspirational to me to convert all modeling over to quads, and my speedster is an example of that style.

As I stated in my prior post here, hopefully someday I can finish it up.

BabelFish Universal Translator Widget

About Me

Trained in Transportation Design at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, I have worked for the past 23 years in every facet of Entertainment Design as Conceptual Designer, up to Design Director. I am currently running my design studio full time out of my home in Littleton, CO.
In the past, I have orchestrated teams as large as 100 on an international level , and as small as a few artists. Art Center gave me the formal training in Industrial Design via sketching and modeling to execute my designs.
The variety within the Entertainment Industry that I have been involved with includes: Television Commercial Set Design, 2D Animation Television Series, Restaurant Design and Illustration, Real Time 3D Interactive Gaming, Online 3D Web interface, CD ROM Magazine Design, Theme Park Attraction Design, and finally ending up in Entertainment based Advertising for Theatrical Films.
I have experience starting up both 2D, and 3D design departments, as well as moving into existing studio infrastructures of operation and working within established systems already in place.